A New Study Confirms Old Knowledge: Psychotherapy Works for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

By James Armontrout, MD fpamed Forensic Psychiatrist When people think about psychotherapy often the image of years of weekly meetings with slow-paced and hard-won improvements comes to mind. While this can be the case for some conditions, many newer psychotherapies for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can often achieve remarkable results in a time-limited fashion. For example, […]

Sexual Abuse & PTSD – Multi-Plaintiff Litigation

Mark Levy, MD and Charles Saldanha, MD, provided a succinct and focused discussion on the topic of PTSD in mass sexual abuse cases.

Pseudologia Fantastica: An Elaborate Tale of Combat-related PTSD

Pseudologia fantastica (PF), also known as mythomania or pathologic lying, is a well-known yet controversial phenomenon in psychiatry. There is no firm conceptualization of PF, nor are there any widely accepted diagnostic criteria for PF. The condition may be related to low self-esteem, and it shows some overlap with narcissistic personality disorder and other Diagnostic […]

HB Webinar: PTSD in Mass Tort & Multi-Plaintiff Litigation

Watch the FREE video recording of this webinar. Everything You Need to Know About Assessing PTSD Claims In Mass Tort Litigation: The “Team” Approach. Get up to speed on the medical and scientific aspects of PTSD in mass tort and multi-claimant cases. With Mark I. Levy, MD, DLFAPA and Sarah A. Hall, PhD.

PTSD Claims Brought by Facebook’s ‘Graphic Content’ Reviewers Goes to ADR, Putting Civil Action on Pause

Facebook can be great fun. How else would I have seen a video of an eight-year-old drummer-girl utterly thrashing Led Zeppelin’s Good Times Bad Times? Or a dog running away with a lit skyrocket as his human friends run, duck and ditch for their lives? Or what your cat looks like in a tuxedo?

Check out the upcoming HB Webinar

Staying on Track: Differentiating Between Genuine and False PTSD Claims in Railroad Litigation – Including Both Individual and Mass Tort Cases

These are the slides accompanying a presentation on “PTSD” given by forensic psychiatrist Mark I Levy MD, DLFAPA to the Association of American Railroads Claims Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee on October 12, 2016. Click here to view

Staying On Track: PTSD – American Association of Railroads General Claims Meeting

Click here to download a pdf of the Powerpoint presentation “Staying On Track: Differentiating Between Genuine and False PTSD Claims in Railroad Litigation” given by Mark I Levy MD at the October 12, 2016 the General Claims Meeting of the American Association of Railroads in Nashville, TN.

DID THE BATON ROUGE KILLER HAVE PTSD?

Forensic Psychiatrist Mark I. Levy MD was interviewed on July 20, 2016 for the following television news story: By KTVU Reporter Tom Vacar There are reports that the man who killed three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers told friends he was suffering from PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. So, I spoke with two of the […]

Staying on Track: Differentiating Between Genuine and False PTSD Claims in Railroad Litigation

Slide show for Mark I Levy MD DLFAPA and Ronald H. Roberts PhD, AAPP, presenters at NARTC Annual Meeting, Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, CA July 25, 2016, 9:00 a.m. Click here to download pdf of slides

Study Finds Gene Methylation a Marker of PTSD Vulnerability

from Psychiatric News Alert: The Voice of the American Psychiatric Association and the Psychiatric Community This journal article may provide an important new piece to the puzzle of trying to understand PTSD vulnerability and resiliency factors. It could bring us closer to biological testing for PTSD vulnerability which could eventually be used to screen applicants for […]

Effective Use of Forensic Psychiatry in Catastrophic Injury, Toxic Torts, and Multi-Party Litigation

Michael Fox, a partner at the Sedgwick law firm, San Francisco office, together with Ronald Roberts PhD and Mark Levy MD from fpamed, spoke on panel at the International Association of Defense Counsel midyear meeting at Carlsbad, California on February 11, 2014  The powerpoint slides can be downloaded in pdf format here: Effective Use of […]

Asiana Airline Crash at SFO & Recovery of Emotional Damages Under Montreal Convention

The Montreal Convention, the successor international treaty to the Warsaw Convention, governs damages claims from injury on international carrier flights. Passengers who suffer severe emotional distress from an aircraft disaster cannot claim damages consisting of emotional injury alone – the psychological injury must “flow through” a physical injury. Ironically, relatives or the estate of a […]

9th Circuit Rules That “Zone of Danger” Sufficient to Justify PTSD Claims

The 9th circuit federal appeals court majority said Tuesday that a previous ruling, and an earlier Supreme Court decision, allow an emotonal damages suit alleging Posttraumatic Stress Disorder by a seaman who was in a negligently operated vessel’s “zone of danger.”

PowerPoint Slides from Lecture for Attorneys on Working with Traumatized Clients – by Susan M. Meffert, MD, MPH

A slide show accompanying a lecture for Attorneys by Dr. Meffert discussing the issue of working with traumatized clients.

A Prospective Study of Trait Anger and PTSD Symptoms in Police by Susan M. Meffert, MD, MPH et al

It is unknown whether anger is a risk factor for the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, arises as a consequence of PTSD, or both. Two hypotheses were tested in 180 police recruits: Greater trait anger during training will predict greater PTSD symptoms at one year; greater PTSD symptoms at one year will predict greater state anger at one year. Both hypotheses were confirmed, suggesting that trait anger is a risk factor for PTSD symptoms, but that PTSD symptoms are also associated with an increase of state anger. Increased anger is important not only because of the impact it has on individual distress and physical health, but also because of its potential public health impact.

Darfur Refugees in Cairo: Mental Health and Interpersonal Conflict in the Aftermath of Genocide – Susan Meffert MD, MPH, Charles Marmar, MD

Hundreds of thousands of Darfur people affected by the Sudanese genocide have fled to Cairo, Egypt, in search of assistance. Collaborating with Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), the authors conducted a mental health care needs assessment among Darfur refugees in Cairo. Information was collected using individual and focus group interviews to identify gaps in mental health care and develop understandings of emotional and relationship problems. The refugee mental health care system has a piecemeal structure with gaps in outpatient services. There is moderate to severe emotional distress among many Darfur refugees, including symptoms of depression and trauma, and interpersonal conflict, both domestic violence and broader community conflict, elevated relative to pregenocide levels. Given the established relationships between symptoms of depression/traumatic stress and interpersonal violence, improving mental health is important for both preventing mental health decompensation and stemming future cycles of intra- and intergroup conflict.

Edna Foa, PhD – Prolonged Exposure Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Edna Foa, PhD, the creator of Prolonged Exposure Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is interviewed by Time Magazine.

Scientists Read Brain’s Magnetic Fields to Spot PTSD

Scientists Read Brain’s Magnetic Fields to Spot PTSD
Test identified those with the disorder 90% of the time

PTSD In US Servicemen In Iraq – Interview with Dr. Levy – AP 5/12/09

AP 5/12/09: Father of US Army Sgt John M. Russell says his son was treated poorly in a a military stress treatment center in Baghdad before he killed 5 of his fellow soldiers on 5/11/09. Mark Levy, MD was interviewed about the nature of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and the role it may have played in […]

Birth Trauma & PTSD

Birth Trauma: Stress Disorder Afflicts Moms Study Suggests That PTSD May Be More Common Than Previously Believed By RACHEL ZIMMERMAN August 5, 2008; Page D1 Amid the debate over how to effectively manage maternal mental-health disorders, a new type of postpartum illness is gaining attention: post-traumatic-stress disorder due to childbirth. PTSD is most commonly associated […]

PTSD & Sleep

Sleep is the enemy A former Marine fights nightmares of Iraq by struggling to stay awake. Millions, veteran and civilian, face a nightly battle. By Jia-Rui Chong Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 5, 2008 SAN DIEGO — By the time the sun began to rise one recent Friday over his Mira Mesa neighborhood, Mitch […]

Pentagon spends $300M to study troops’ stress, trauma

Pentagon spends $300M to study troops’ stress, trauma By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY The Pentagon is spending an unprecedented $300 million this summer on research for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, offering hope not only for troops but hundreds of thousands of civilians. The money — the most spent in one year on […]

When is a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Claim Legitimate…and When Is It Not?

When is a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Claim Legitimate…and When Is It Not? by Mark I. Levy, M.D.  Asst. Clinical Professor Psychiatry University of California San Francisco School of Medicine (expanded version of article published in For the Defense,  November 1995) In prehistoric times, when our earliest ancestors lived in dread of their mortal enemy, […]